Antenna Module Comprising Floating Radiators in Communication System, and Electronic Device Comprising Same

This application is a continuation application of prior application Ser. No. 17/863,857, filed on Jul. 13, 2022, which is a continuation application, claiming priority under 35 U.S.C. § 365 (c), of an International application No. PCT/KR2021/000599, filed on Jan. 15, 2021, which is based on and claims the benefit of a U.S. Provisional application Ser. No. 62/961,754, filed on Jan. 16, 2020, in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The disclosure relates to a communication system. More particularly, the disclosure relates to an antenna module including multiple floating radiators, and an electronic device including the same.

To meet the demand for wireless data traffic having increased since deployment of 4th-Generation (4G) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop an improved 5th-Generation (5G) or pre-5G communication system. Therefore, the 5G or pre-5G communication system is also called a ‘Beyond 4G Network’ or a ‘Post Long Term Evolution (LTE) System’. The 5G communication system is considered to be implemented in higher frequency (mmWave) bands, e.g., 60 GHZ bands, so as to accomplish higher data rates. To decrease propagation loss of the radio waves and increase the transmission distance, the beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, an analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques are discussed in 5G communication systems. In addition, in 5G communication systems, development for system network improvement is under way based on advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving network, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (COMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like. In the 5G system, Hybrid Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) and Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as an advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as an advanced access technology have been developed.

The Internet, which is a human centered connectivity network where humans generate and consume information, is now evolving to the Internet of Things (IoT) where distributed entities, such as things, exchange and process information without human intervention. The Internet of Everything (IoE), which is a combination of the IoT technology and the Big Data processing technology through connection with a cloud server, has emerged. As technology elements, such as “sensing technology”, “wired/wireless communication and network infrastructure”, “service interface technology”, and “Security technology” have been demanded for IoT implementation, a sensor network, a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication, Machine Type Communication (MTC), and so forth have been recently researched. Such an IoT environment may provide intelligent Internet technology services that create a new value to human life by collecting and analyzing data generated among connected things. IoT may be applied to a variety of fields including smart home, smart building, smart city, smart car or connected cars, smart grid, health care, smart appliances and advanced medical services through convergence and combination between existing Information Technology (IT) and various industrial applications.

In line with this, various attempts have been made to apply 5G communication systems to IoT networks. For example, technologies, such as a sensor network, Machine Type Communication (MTC), and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication may be implemented by beamforming, MIMO, and array antennas. Application of a cloud Radio Access Network (RAN) as the above-described Big Data processing technology may also be considered to be as an example of convergence between the 5G technology and the IoT technology.

The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the disclosure.

Aspects of the disclosure are to address at least the above-mentioned problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below. Accordingly, an aspect of the disclosure is to provide an antenna module structure for improving the side ratio and rear ratio of an antenna module of an electronic device in a communication system.

Another aspect of the disclosure is to provide an antenna module structure for improving the directivity of a beam radiated from an antenna module.

Another aspect of the disclosure is to provide an antenna module structure having a wide aperture for improving the directivity of a beam radiated from an antenna module.

Another aspect of the disclosure is to provide an antenna module structure for reducing surface waves of electromagnetic waves radiated from an antenna module.

Additional aspects will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the presented embodiments.

In accordance with an aspect of the disclosure, an electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes a board, a plurality of antenna arrays arranged on the board, and a plurality of floating radiator arrays arranged to be spaced apart from the plurality of antenna arrays by a predetermined distance on the board. The plurality of floating radiator arrays are electromagnetically coupled to the plurality of antenna arrays.

A first floating radiator array among the plurality of floating radiator arrays may be disposed to be spaced apart from a first side of a first antenna array among the plurality of antenna arrays by a predetermined distance.

A second floating radiator array among the plurality of floating radiator arrays may be disposed to be spaced apart from a second side of the first antenna array among the plurality of antenna arrays by a predetermined distance.

The second floating radiator array may be disposed to be spaced apart from a first side of a second antenna array among the plurality of antenna arrays by a predetermined distance.

Each of the plurality of floating radiator arrays may include a plurality of floating radiators.

Each of the plurality of floating radiators may have a ring shape.

The ring shape may include at least one of a rectangular ring shape, a circular ring shape, and a diamond-shaped ring shape.

Each of the plurality of floating radiators may include a capacitor and first to fourth inductors.

A factor value of each of the capacitor and the first to fourth inductors may be determined according to at least one of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a thickness, and a line width of each of the plurality of floating radiators.

A first end of the first inductor may be electrically connected to a second end of the fourth inductor.

A second end of the first inductor may be electrically connected to a first end of the second inductor.

A second end of the second inductor may be electrically connected to a first end of the third inductor.

A third end of the second inductor may be electrically connected to a first end of the capacitor.

A second end of the third inductor may be electrically connected to the second end of the fourth inductor.

A third end of the fourth inductor may be electrically connected to a second end of the capacitor.

Each of the plurality of floating radiators may be a patch-type radiator.

The patch-type radiator may have at least one shape of a diamond shape and a rectangular patch shape.

The electronic device further includes a feeding circuit configured to supply an electrical signal to the plurality of antenna arrays. The plurality of antenna arrays may radiate a first electromagnetic wave, based on the electrical signal. The plurality of floating radiator arrays may be electromagnetically coupled to the plurality of antenna arrays, based on the first electromagnetic wave, so as to radiate a second electromagnetic wave.

A phase of the first electromagnetic wave may correspond to a phase of the second electromagnetic wave.

The phase of the first electromagnetic wave and the phase of the second electromagnetic wave may be determined according to at least one of a horizontal length, a vertical length, a thickness, and a line width of each of the plurality of floating radiators.

An electronic device according to the disclosure may improve communication performance by improving the side ratio and rear ratio of an antenna module.

An electronic device according to the disclosure may improve the directivity of a beam radiated from an antenna module.

An electronic device according to the disclosure may improve the directivity of a beam radiated from an antenna module by increasing the area of an aperture for radiating beams through multiple floating radiators.

An electronic device according to the disclosure may reduce surface waves of electromagnetic waves radiated from an antenna module.

Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses various embodiments of the disclosure.

The same reference numerals are used to represent the same elements throughout the drawings.

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings is provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of various embodiments of the disclosure as defined by the claims and their equivalents. It includes various specific details to assist in that understanding but these are to be regarded as merely exemplary. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the various embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure. In addition, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for clarity and conciseness.

The terms and words used in the following description and claims are not limited to the bibliographical meanings, but, are merely used by the inventor to enable a clear and consistent understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the following description of various embodiments of the disclosure is provided for illustration purpose only and not for the purpose of limiting the disclosure as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

It is to be understood that the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “a component surface” includes reference to one or more of such surfaces.

In the following description, terms for identifying communication nodes or access nodes, terms referring to network entities, terms referring to messages, terms referring to interfaces between network entities, terms referring to various identification information, and the like are illustratively used for the sake of convenience. Therefore, the disclosure is not limited by the terms as used below, and other terms referring to subjects having equivalent technical meanings may be used.

In the following description, the disclosure will be described using terms and names defined in the 5GS and NR standard, which is the latest standard specified by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) group among the existing communication standards, for the convenience of description. However, the disclosure is not limited by these terms and names, and may be applied in the same way to systems that conform other standards. In particular, the disclosure may be applied to 3GPP 5GS/NR (5th generation mobile communication standard).

is a block diagram illustrating an electronic device in a network environment according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

Referring to, an electronic devicein the network environment may communicate with any other electronic device (not shown) or a server (not shown) via a network (e.g., a wired or wireless communication network). For example, the electronic devicemay be a base station and the other electronic device may be a terminal.

According to an embodiment, the electronic devicemay include an antenna module, a communication module, a processor, a memory, and an interface. In some embodiments, at least one of the components may be omitted from the electronic device, or one or more other components may be added in the electronic device. In some embodiments, some of the components may be integrated into a single element.

The processormay control, for example, at least one other component (e.g., a hardware or software component) of the electronic device, coupled with the processor, and may perform various data processing or computation. According to one embodiment, as at least part of the data processing or computation, the processormay store a command or data received from another component (e.g., the communication module) in the memory, process the command or the data stored in the memory, and store resulting data in the memory.

The memorymay store various data used by at least one component of the electronic device. The data may include, for example, software and input data or output data for a command related thereto.

The interfacemay support one or more specified protocols that may be used for the electronic deviceto be coupled directly or wirelessly with any other electronic device. According to another embodiment, the interfacemay include, for example, a universal serial bus (USB) interface or a secure digital (SD) card interface.

The communication modulemay support establishing a wired communication channel or a wireless communication channel between the electronic deviceand any other electronic device and performing communication via the established communication channel. The communication modulemay include one or more communication processors that are operable independently from the processorand supports a wired communication or a wireless communication. According to yet another embodiment, the communication modulemay communicate with any other electronic device or a server via a legacy cellular network, a 5G network, a next-generation communication network, the Internet, or a computer network (e.g., LAN or WAN). These various types of communication modules may be implemented as a single component (e.g., a single chip), or may be implemented as multi components (e.g., multi chips) separate from each other.

The communication modulemay supports 5G network and next-generation communication technologies beyond the 4G network, for example, new radio (NR) access technology. The NR access technology may support high-speed transmission of high-capacity data (enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB)), terminal power minimization and multi-terminal access (massive machine type communications (mMTC)), or ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC). For example, the communication modulemay support ultrahigh frequency (mmWave) bands so as to accomplish higher data rates. The communication modulemay support various techniques for ensuring performance in the ultrahigh frequency bands, such as beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO), full dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques. The communication modulesupport various requirements specified for the electronic device, any other electronic device, or a network system.